


Stars and Dead Reckoning

by SerenityRebirth



Category: Mass Effect, Mass Effect Andromeda, Scott Ryder - Fandom
Genre: Fragmented Prose, Lyrical prose, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-10
Updated: 2019-03-10
Packaged: 2019-11-14 20:04:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18059165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SerenityRebirth/pseuds/SerenityRebirth
Summary: What is it like to sleep for 600 years? What is it like to starve for breath? I miss the stars......and now I’m in a different galaxy.What will life be like after taking such a big leap?





	Stars and Dead Reckoning

**Author's Note:**

> This is a modified version of a fan fiction I wrote and posted on my blog MyQueerShapedLife.com. I decided to change the protagonist name and change the look of my initial Ryder.

 

Scott Ryder – Log 1 – Prelaunch 2185

I feel a bit silly, sitting out here, alone with this data pad, trying to figure out what I want my last words in the Milky Way Galaxy to be. I’m trying so hard to keep my mind where my feet are because I know that these are the last steps I’ll ever take in this galaxy.

Not to sound dramatic, but we are doing what other humans have only dreamed of and that’s the most exhilarating and terrifying thought I’ve ever had! I’m lucky though because Sara and father are coming with me so I won’t be alone.

I try to look at my shoes, at my feet, at the ground as I scrape the soles against the dirt and rocks underneath them but all I can think of is the sky. When I think of the sky, I inevitably think about the stars. I imagine myself staring at them, in the Helius Cluster, and I think that they will look familiar but also strange. Stars all look the same and there are so many and they look so close together, but they are light years apart. 600 light years apart. I imagine that they too will look like glitter in the sky, like cosmic confetti left from the Big Bang Party and that I can scoop them up in my hands and let their light fragment, flicker and flash. But I know this isn’t possible because they are so distant that they will never feel the warmth of each other, even though their heat can incinerate a planet.

 

  

Scott Ryder – Log 2 – Postlaunch … 600 years (???) Later

I’ll be asked, at one point, what is it like sleeping for 600 years. And the first word that comes to mind is “death.”

When you’re in a cryogenic sleep, you’re as still as death. I’ll paint a picture for you. Imagine you’re most cherished place of comfort and security. Maybe it’s your bedroom or a seat in the quiet corner of a library. This is what I had to imagine as I was put into a glass and metallic coffin – I mean tube. Now lay on the floor and put your fingertips into your ears. Close your eyes. You’ll hear it _pulse pulse pulse_. You’ll feel it _pulse pulse pulse_. This pulse is the essence of life. It is your heart, the ebb and flow of your lungs. It is in this moment that you’ll realize that even when you close yourself off to all the sounds of the world that your body is still playing its own chorus over and over again, your circadian rhythm.

Now, imagine it all just stops.

There is silence. You’re alive, or at least, you think you are but all is silent. And it is in this silence that you are met with a choice. Do you give into the madness of silence, or do you fill it up with nightmares. I chose nightmares and I often wondered if in this bed of ice, was I dead? Without the pulse of life, without the chorus of my heart, how can I tell? Was the Initiative a failure? When will the rhythm come back? How long have I been “dead?” Is there life beyond the pulse? _Pulse pulse pulse_ I’m desperate to hear the sound of my own song once again. For the love of God someone please, please, please get me out of this ice prison, I’m not sure I can take it anymore, how long is 600 years, can I even fathom how long that is, _pulse pulse pulse_ , I remember it but I don’t remember the feeling of it, someone, some-body, body, I want my body back, I want my life back –

There is a rumble.

Is this the new pulse? There’s movement. Then I hear more sounds but they all melt together into a rumble, or maybe a roar. 600 years later, they pull me out of the darkness, but I’m still packaged and frozen like ground beef left on the counter. Somewhere deep down, I know that they can’t just bring me back to life, I have to be patient, but I am not patient because I’ve heard the roar, I won’t ignore it and now I want to hear the pulse.

Silence comes again, and I’m dead once again.

But then I think of rain drops on my brown skin, warm winds blowing on my face. And as the memories begin to fill in the void, a song unfolds in the distance, somewhere inside, maybe in my soul, I feel it unraveling, a melody calling me home.

Home.

_Pulse_.

_Pulse pulse pulse_.

Blood. Lungs. Fire. The memory of breathing comes back to me and then life is screaming at me to be reborn. And even though I am still paralyzed, I am thrashing and kicking and begging to return. “Give me pulse, give me life, give me stars, give me a chance to take these bars of ice that are my prison and shatter them and unfurl my arms like wings and rise as a frigid phoenix in the new world.

I breathe in and my lungs are incinerated, and I want to cry, but I’m too excited to do so.

The first thing that comes to mind when I sit up are stars. 600 years asleep and I feel like I finally understand the secret they hold: life isn’t thought. Life is pulse. Life is blood. Life is touch. Life is breathing. Life came from the stars, but it is our pulse that gives us life. Even being light years away from where life began, we are still alive, because we have a pulse, and that’s our starting point.

It is in that moment, that all the stars in my chest, all the memories, dreams and thoughts, once scattered, begin to realign. To realign means that I will also have to fill in what’s been lost, because as much as the pulse of life is important, I am immediately conscious that I have lost my home and therefore have a blackhole threatening to collect the light left inside.

“It’s okay,” I whisper to no one.

“I will fill the holes in my heart with the stars of Andromeda.”


End file.
